RE: Preposition at Beginning or End?

["Lauren" <lt34 -at- csus -dot- edu>]

How about weak then?  It bothers me that it isn't direct and reads it with a
passive, although not grammatically passive, tone.  I also don't like how
the sentence just puts the reader into the "Country list" without any
direction, like the writer assumed that the user should just suddenly be
there.  I prefer direct instructions that are in order and that do not make
assumptions.

Lauren
 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: techwr-l-bounces+lt34=csus -dot- edu -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com 
> [mailto:techwr-l-bounces+lt34=csus -dot- edu -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com] On 
> Behalf Of Combs, Richard
> Sent: Friday, April 20, 2007 8:57 AM
> To: TECHWR-L
> Subject: RE: Preposition at Beginning or End?
> 
> Lauren wrote: 
>  
> > I hate that first one too because it is passive, but it puts 
> > things in the right order and the second sentence does not.  
> > But really there is an action to activate the country list, 
> > so I prefer to aim for the actions that are involved and 
> > write in the active voice. So...
> > 
> > Sentence No. 3: "Click the Country drop-down list and select USA." 
> 
> That's a pretty good alternative, but the reasoning behind it is
> mistaken. 
> 
> Sentence 1 is not passive. It uses the second person imperative verb
> "select" (just as Sentence 3 does). The subject is the 
> understood "you"
> (a characteristic of the imperative mood). The object of the sentence,
> "USA," is the object of the action, and the subject of the sentence
> performs the action. That's active voice (just like Sentence 3). 
> 
> Passive voice is when the subject of the sentence is the object of the
> action. Here's a passive versions of Sentence 1:
> 
> "From the Country drop-down list, USA should be selected."
> 
> There'll be a quiz later. ;-)
> 
> Richard
> 
> 
> ------
> Richard G. Combs
> Senior Technical Writer
> Polycom, Inc.
> richardDOTcombs AT polycomDOTcom
> 303-223-5111
> ------
> rgcombs AT gmailDOTcom
> 303-777-0436
> ------

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